March 21, 2015

March 21, 2015

Written by Maximus Peperkamp, M.S. Behavioral Engineer

Dear Reader, 

 

While writing this writer is talking with himself sub-vocally. He doesn’t say anything. If a video was made of him, one would only see him sitting on his chair with his laptop on his knees. Nothing of his verbal behavior could be heard. One would only hear the sound of his keyboard. The words he is thinking are a neural behavior only available to him. He feels great he is no longer talking out loud with himself and is writing like this and enjoying himself. It is like a miracle which happens in total silence.

People often told him about the great difference they experience between what they say when they think out loud and what they think without saying it. This writer is thinking without saying it, but since he is typing thoughts, he is experiencing a similar epiphany as when a person is for the first time thinking out loud and really listening to him or herself. The listening this writer is doing is different because there is nothing to hear. In fact it cannot be called listening. He is reading what he writes and discovering what he is going to write, while he is writing. 

His pace of writing is much slower than his pace of his speaking. He likes to slow down and is not bothered if it takes time for the words to appear. He is more patient as a writer than as a speaker. He never thought about this and he is delighted by this discovery. It is easier for him to follow his thoughts while he writes than when he speaks. When he speaks there is an immediacy which is lacking when he writes and reads. A year ago, he would have never thought he would experience his writing as a more laid back activity than his own speaking. A shift in his verbal behavior has occurred. 

This writer is at ease while writing and reading these words. He has created this situation in which this writing is replacing his speaking and this reading is replacing his listening. He is moving into a new realm, the realm of the printed word. For a long time reading and writing had been uncomfortable to him. Recently, reading has become more accessible to him due to his writing. While writing this, he notices his mouth would still like to make movements to speak these words, but he doesn’t let that happen. He doesn’t keep his lips shut, but he senses that his lips are touching each other in a peaceful manner. The feeling generated by that smile is felt throughout his body and is refreshing.

When one reads a written text, one’ s eyes must follow the words that form the sentences as one tries to understand, but when one, like this writer, is writing one’s own text, there are no words to be followed as they have not yet appeared. To read one's own written words, one is waiting for words to appear and only then can one read. It seems this writer is writing and reading these words at the same time. Indeed, his writing and reading behavior are happening at the same rate. This can also happen while he speaks, when his speaking and listening are joined. When speaking and listening happen at the same rate, Sound Verbal Behavior (SVB) occurs. 

Noxious Verbal Behavior (NVB) occurs when speaking and listening happen at different rates. The words “Sound” and “Noxious” describe the quality of our sound during vocal verbal behavior. During any given verbal episode, the sound of our voice changes from moment to moment and gives rise to instances of SVB and NVB. A pleasant and an unpleasant conversation is determined by how we sound. The more instances of NVB, the less we enjoy, the more instances of SVB, the more we enjoy our conversation. 

When writing and reading behavior happen at the same rate, a written version of SVB is created. Such texts are very easy to read. Likewise, in SVB as vocal verbal behavior, speakers are easy to listen to. In NVB, by contrast, the speaker’s voice is an aversive stimulus and difficult to listen to. In NVB texts, the reader is having difficulty understanding the writer. A text that was written by a writer whose writing wasn’t joined with his reading verbal behavior, is difficult to understand. It is easy to read and understand when a writer’s writing and reading are in total synchronicity. 

Since most of our conversations unfortunately have a higher rate of NVB than SVB instances, most of our writings show a similar pattern too. It is no accident that since most of our conversations are difficult to follow, that most of what is written is difficult to read. This can and should be  noticed and changed. Noticing the high rate of NVB in a written text is easier to spot than noticing it during spoken communication. When a text is too difficult for us to read, we simply don’t want to read it. Likewise, when conversation is difficult to understand, we also just don’t want to hear it. When the NVB verbalizer’s speaking happens at a higher rate than his or her listening, the mediator’s speaking must happen at a lower rate than his or her listening, so that he or she can understand him or her. Speaking and listening is always effortful during NVB. Likewise, writing NVB texts is as difficult as reading NVB. 

It is easier to refuse to read a text then to refuse to listen or speak with each other. If a text is too difficult, we put is away, we don’t want to read, because we don’t understand it. However, if a conversation is too difficult for us, we often can’t refuse it. To avoid the immediate bad consequences, we fake that we understand each other. Reading, writing, texting, tweeting and social networking have appeal, because they relief us from the immediacy of our social constraints.

During SVB, the written and the spoken verbal behavior of the verbalizer and the mediator keep getting better and better over time. In other words, there is constant improvement, adjustment and refinement. Even when something isn’t clear, this is addressed and cleared up. In NVB, on the other hand, the verbal behavior of the speaker and the listener as well as the writer and the reader gets worse over time. Another way of viewing this negative and problematic process is that, comparatively speaking, we discriminate more and more instances of NVB. 

 

SVB and NVB are functionally equivalent. In both response classes people get their needs met, but the means by which this happens are different. In NVB, the relationship gets more and more strained, often leading to a crisis or breakup, but in SVB, the relationship improves. SVB is definitely more advanced than NVB, which is basically our caveman mentality. Only in SVB can we be more precise, accurate and complex, but due to our NVB, we become more crude, dissociated and insensitive. Lifelong consequences of verbal behavior are best observed in old people. Old folks who have had more SVB are healthier, more social and active in their old age, but those who mainly had NVB, become more rigid, isolated, frustrated and angry. 

We give all sorts of medical names to these aging-phenomena, but we are often unknowingly talking about the long-term effects of NVB. This writer once worked in a geriatric home and noticed that even in old age people continued to terrorize each other, as they had done throughout their lives. When he facilitated conversational social groups, those who had been used to more SVB responded with joy and appreciation, but often they had to be constantly protected from the meanness of those who were more NVB-inclined. Especially apparent in that context was the contrast between the repetitiveness of NVB and the spontaneity of SVB. Those with SVB are simply more alive, but those with more NVB are dying.